By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (19)

October 6, 2020

If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?

Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $346.69.

Week 29 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Week 29, Day 199: Between JB and Seamus, and now TBD nickname Smol Human, I am not getting anything like enough sleep.

I was teetering on the very edge of the cliff of No Patience, and nearly bit off PiC’s head for asking me any questions.

I had to take several deep breaths and a giant step back, and stop working for a little while. I did a spot of organizing. Stress cleaning usually evens out my mood and stress organizing was close. It took the edge off at least but it was enough for me to realize just how tired I was. I never snap at PiC.

After I realized that I’d been woken up or disturbed no less than a dozen times over the night, I gave up trying to fight and went to lay down for a short 30 minute rest. I really needed a couple hours but I did not have that luxury on a Monday. We made it through but not without a lot more bumps and bruises along the way.

After hours, I discovered Seamus, fresh off one round of medications yesterday, has developed yet another problem! That poor pup cannot get a break. I gave him some medication and monitored it but he neither improved nor seemed in distress so we left it til morning to talk to the vet.

Week 29, Day 200: I had done some digging overnight prior to calling the vet, as I always do so I have some idea of what I’m talking about, and scheduled an appointment for this week. I’m crossing all my fingers and toes that it’s not what I suspect which would require surgery.

I also had a stern talk with JB about leaving Dad alone today. He’d gotten no work done on Monday in part because of his own choices but in part because I was completely no good to anyone so he had to do all the household everything alone. JB and I were to consider this our day, and they were not to run to Daddy every three seconds as usual. We got breakfast for everyone, and they went off to kindergarten right on time without any yelling to hurry up and quit dawdling for once.

They checked in with me after the class, and set to work on a giant organizing project they’d spread out on my floor. There was at least an hour long monologue as they worked which I paid about 1/10 of my attention to, and that got us through to an early lunch. I prepped an easy lunch with leftovers and used some of that time to cook up a turkey and zucchini pasta sauce for dinner. My days are far more smooth when I break up dinner prep throughout the day and when I remember to break for lunch before noon. There’s always an extra edge of stress of feeling behind when my midday break runs into the 2 o’clock hour.

They would have been right on time for their afternoon lesson but that was cancelled so we went back to the organizing project and they chattered away like a magpie for quite some time. It let me focus my annoyance on work for another hour or so instead of interruptions, which was nice. If I can think of a couple more projects like this that they can just self manage and immerse themselves in, that would really make each week a bit easier.

Everyone was done in by 6 pm (emotionally, we weren’t done with work by any means) so everyone was grouchy and snappish and growling like bears for one reason or another. Breaking off for a dog walk and dinner helped, then we were back at our desks again while JB settled in for the night.

I’m very deliberately ignoring the debate tonight. I tried to ignore that it was even happening because I did not need that weighing on my soul when I already knew it’d be a complete fiasco and make me madder than a wet hornet. I know how we’re voting and I know there are still horrible selfish racists and white supremacists out there who wholeheartedly support 45, and there are so-called undecideds who aren’t really but just want to make it seem like there’s a credible reason that they’d want four more years of this disaster in the White House so they can justify voting for a murderous dumpster fire president. I don’t need to hear any talking points on the matter lest my head explode.

I can’t stomach the thought that he may get another four years and I can’t stomach the thought of having to consider what we do if he does. The country is on fire, literally here in California, and metaphorically and though I’ve never considered living anywhere else, part of me feels obligated to consider whether we have to look at options. I don’t want to raise my kids in a country that could allow this travesty to happen twice. I don’t want to pull up stakes and move. I want to fight for change and to see that change stick, not erode into nothing. There is a lot to process and I’m glad we have friends who feel better by taking action because it helps me to grab hold of an action or two even when things feel most especially dismal.

Week 29, Day 201: Who’s crabby? ME! There’s a surprise.

I keep finding the Target sales evading me. I missed stacking discounts for stocking up on our shampoo and conditioners last Saturday, then after finding a new applicable promo on Sunday, I found today that they also increased the price. DELETE.

We’re still feeling the effects of losing the weekend. We had friends who asked for help on Saturday and that took PiC out of commission for a few hours and pretty much the entire afternoon. Then he got stuck on Sunday when a friend’s starter died and no one but him had AAA. That ruined our entire Sunday’s plans which spilled over into the week and has left residual resentment about things left undone. I don’t resent the friend, it’s not his fault, and those friends would all do the same for him if they needed to. I just resent all the stuff we couldn’t do on the weekend and the dramatically increased amount of tired that resulted from solo parenting from 9-5 unexpectedly. If I had known and planned for it, I would have done things differently. Because I had rationed energy for a half day of soloing, expecting PiC to pick up at 1 pm but he couldn’t get home until 5 pm, I was physically wrecked.

It also meant I didn’t get to pick up my free birthday cake so that was an added grumpy.

But for a good surprise: we can schedule our refi closing in a week! That would be another huge boulder of a burden off my shoulders.

I wanted to choose a lender based on speed as much as rates but ended up with a lender with the best rate and closing costs and the slowest estimated time to close (about 60 days). I couldn’t justify paying more just for a faster closing so the past month has been a real exercise in teaching myself to sit back and stop spinning myself into anxiety circles trying to push the wind.

It would move forward when it was ready and there were only a few points at which I could influence that: providing documentation on request three separate times. I always jumped on those and got everything back to them on the same day to be sure I was doing my part. And in between I had to force myself to think of everything else I needed to do instead of dwelling uselessly on the thing I wanted to be done.

This will drop our monthly payment by $500 but I will continue to overpay some TBD amount monthly because it’s still an obscenely large mortgage and I’d rather have more paid down than less. At least this way a whole lot more goes to principal.

Week 29, Day 202: JB school stuff: I hate Seesaw.

I had to make / take 6 phone calls today and that was 5 too many. I short circuited after 3 and couldn’t handle anyone talking to me or getting in my space for a while. I just needed to be left alone for a good hour. And the air quality was back to terrible today so outdoor time was very limited. I’m grateful we bought the air purifier last week so we can actually breathe indoors without headaches again.

It was most definitely a take out dinner day between the chores and errands that had to be run. JB and I did the dog walk, dog feeding, and homework. PiC did the pharmacy, groceries and take out runs. We still didn’t get to bed until after 8 and the heat made it difficult to get comfortable.

Week 29, Day 203: I keep hoping that my crankiness is pregnancy related so that at some point, this will end. It only took a few hours to remember that it might also be because I maybe got 3 hours of sleep.

Most of the day was a scramble to get things done and to fix one minor disaster after another. It was a whole hellish draining mess compounded by terrible air quality. I couldn’t be more relieved to finally get in bed and stay there by 11 pm.

But we are exceedingly grateful for the assistance of our quarantine friends. We never would have made it without their time and muscles. I’m also happy that I managed to pick up some local treats to thank them for helping us out.